The Excavation Site (02/21/2010)

We were missing Joette this week (India!) so Rich will play her character ... missing players tend to have their characters fall into trouble. Will history repeat itself?

The party had decided last week to check on the door at the end of the hallway leading west out of the guard room. Upon approaching the door Oester was able to pick up some distant but unintelligible voices before opening the unlocked door, and opening the door revealed a set of steps leading down to a long hallway. The voices were now discernible, definitely goblin, but also someone else speaking goblin in an odd hiss-type voice.

Using stealth Oester and Jenneth crept down the stairs. They were now able to see a passageway leading south out of the hallway and straight ahead there was a room from which the voices were emanating. The other party members initially held back while these two were able to make it to the passageway on the south wall (I'll discuss this room later) which gave them a little better view into the room,

The room was quite odd. Large section of floor were obviously missing, while planks of wood connected the remaining floor sections. They were able to spy Goblin Cutters, Goblin Sharpshooters, and several large green draganoid creatures in the room, the numbers of which were not exact though. Jenneth slipped back up the hallway to relay the information to the other party members and was able to escape unseen, but not without a conspicuous trip and boot scrape that may - or may not - have been heard in the room ahead.

Krstic and Bogar decided to lead the charge by going side-by-side down the steps and up the hallway toward the room ahead, bypassing Oester waiting in the opening on the south wall. As they moved forward they saw one of the large green creatures had moved toward the door and was watching them as they moved forward - apparently Jenneth had escaped unseen, but not unheard. The large green guard creature was able to give warning in Goblin and Draconic to the other occupants of the room, and their idle chit-chat turned into squeals and panic. The green guard then moved up the doorway as Bogar and Krstic arrived and the battle was underway.

The large green guard creature had no weapon or armor but able to deliver a (crit) bite to Bogar to start things off, but other party members coming up the hallway were able to respond with some serious ranged damage and the tide slowly turned, which was good because two more green guards soon joined the attack. Bogar and Krstic stood in the doorway fighting the green guards hand-to-hand, but also taking bolts from the three Goblin Sharpshooters arrayed across the back portion of the room.

(L-R) Spiretop Drake, Guard Drakes, and Needlefang Drake (Monster Manual, Pg 92)

The party soon wore down the green guards and the blow of the night was when Bogar killed one guard with a mighty strike and then on his follow through killed the final remaining guard. With the green guards out of the way the party had to contend with the few Goblin Cutters remaining and the dangerous crossbows of the Sharpshooters.

Party members began moving into the room, looking to get past the floored area and into the area where the floor had been dug away. With some cover party members were then able to kill the remaining Goblin Cutters and eventually the last of the Goblin Sharpshooters fell.

There is no doubt this was the "Gold Room" that Splug had described, but the purpose of the room was not easily discerned. There were no religious symbols or artifacts, so this probably wasn't where some unholy ceremony was going to be performed. There was no significant amount of gold on any of the monsters in the room, nor was there any evidence there ever was any in the ground. The back corner of the room contained the busted floor tiles and the dirt excavated from the room, and and investigation revealed nothing of value either in the rubble or on the wall behind it.

No secret doors were found, and no magic was initially found either. As the bodies were searched an old dirt-covered holy symbol was found in the pocket of one of the sharpshooters. Once it was cleaned up it was found to be have a symbol of Bahamut on it and to have some level of magical power imbued upon it. Eldred took the holy symbol to study and see if it could supplement his clerical powers.

As the party looked around the room they saw:

4 Goblin Cutters, each wearing leather armor and wielding a short sword.

3 Goblin Sharpshooters, each wearing leather armor and wielding a short sword and a crossbow with 20 bolts.

3 Guard Drakes (No armor or weapons).

Besides the magic holy symbol the party collected 48 SP and 33 GP and each party members earned 125 XP.

The party then decided to investigate the passageway leading south out of the hallway. As they moved back up the hallway they discovered a secret door on the north wall. Once opened this door revealed a set of steps heading up ... up to the Chieftain's Lair ... this is the stairway that Balgren had tried to escape down in the previous encounter.

The south passageway was not a worked area like the rest of the dungeon. This appeared to be a natural cave area, with a set of crudely carved steps leading down into the darkness. Several party members moved down the steps only to find that this area was not just a room but was actually a much larger cavern. There were several areas of loose rock laying about, insects and vermin moved about the area, and the chittering of rodents could be heard. Oester reported having seen a large rat skitter across the floor earlier.

After some discussion the party decided to leave this area for now and the go through the set of as-of-yet unopened double doors back up in the Guard Room.

DM Note: Another Action Point is accrued by all players as two more successful encounters have been completed.